


Slowly From the Earth

by NosferatuNightingale



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: ACD Canon References, Action/Adventure, Angst, Case Fic, Drama, Drug Use, Epic Friendship, Episode Friendly Formatting, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Murder, Mystery, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Alternating, Recreational Drug Use, Science Rules, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:59:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NosferatuNightingale/pseuds/NosferatuNightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Based on the Original ACD story "Adventure of the Sussex Vampire").</p><p>He had always relied on himself. His intellect, his reasoning, his ability to detach. John Watson forced him to reconnect to the world as his heart, and Molly Hooper was starting to shape into his soul. However, when the most bloodthirsty man he has ever met threatens the lives of those around him, Sherlock Holmes is reminded caring is not an advantage, but anger is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Named for the song by Parlours, a band with tremendous talent). 
> 
> This is an original story loosely based off "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", an Arthur Conan Doyle original. I wanted to make a very case-friendly story that reads like an episode...but you know, with more kick-ass Molly. :D And gore. Woo! 
> 
> Canonically speaking, this takes place in a sort of fog around series 3 and series 4. 
> 
> Comments and constructive feedback are always appreciated!
> 
> WARNING! PLEASE, PLEASE note the archive warnings for this story before beginning! You have been warned! 
> 
> Many thanks to ShowMeTheStars11 for her editing, Britpicking and access to her Mind Palace filled with Sherlock information.

There are particles of dust drifting lazily inside a single vermillion beam striking the centre of the room. It is dark otherwise. He feels John behind him, and his eyes are so happy to leave her face at the moment, because he feels something when his gaze is there. It is familiar and unwelcome. Debilitating. Heavy. He finds himself at the side of his dearest friend, an unsteady hand —it’s from the adrenaline— reaching out just to palpate the security of his radial artery, despite the fact he can see his chest rise and fall assuredly. There is a single ribbon of crimson drying on the temple exposed to the air and when he removes his fingertips, they feel tacky. Clotted blood.  
  
He straightens and as he does so, he is bisected between physicality and psyche. The walls of his normally pristine mind palace are scarlet and when he moves towards her, he can sense lights flickering and he is losing his control of something he had fought so hard to lock inside the labyrinth. In the real world, he takes but five strides towards her figure, curled on the floor with reddened, scraped knees drawn to her chest. In the realm of his mind, there are doors he is slamming closed just as quickly as others are opening. There are schoolyard jeers and the first time he realised what it meant to be alone and the first time it felt like he wasn’t, all trying to escape a wing of his world no longer padlocked. There is Her smile and John’s laugh, Lestrade’s confidence and Mycroft’s caring and Martha Hudson’s warmth and Mother’s voice and Father’s music and His cold tactile logic; All of these he holds onto as he slams doors and moves along corridors, pushing forward.  
  
He tries, he really does…to see her as he usually can. Impassively. He sees, he observes, he deduces. Contusion to the right temple—just like John’s wound, he is left-handed, strong, used to box, not professionally, bruising is too big, he uses brute strength, rounds his arm wide before dealing the punch—, several abrasions and lacerations to bilateral hands and hands and arms, a split lip. He wished he didn’t notice that she had been wearing what she believes to be his favourite shade of lipstick, that it had smeared into a caricature across her jaw, but he did. Her hair is askew and still partially in its former ponytail. It had been pulled forcefully backward, causing some of the strands to loosen from the binding. He wished he didn’t care that she had parted it to the side, but he did. His gaze lowers, noting her wrists are still bound together and he reaches out, intending to release them when, there —  
  
She is sitting in a dark carmine puddle. Her thighs and skirt are drenched with it.  
  
“Molly”, he says, and he doesn’t know his own voice, or why his hands are trying to touch her face.  
  
“Don’t touch me,” is all she whispers.  
  
Sherlock Holmes looks at his friends, below him, bleeding and bruised, and for the first time, the lights in his mind palace flicker off. He stands there, alone inside the conservatory of his memories, a solitary bulb swinging back and forth as if a pendulum, wildly casting slashes of black and orange shadows this way and that. The only thing he recognises is a voice in the darkness whispering to him,  
  
 _“I will burn the heart out of you.”_

* * *

  
  
28 October, 6:45 am.  
  
He was going to kill him. Shoot, strangle, poison…Something. He knew he could figure it out and probably could pull it off and make it look like an accident so his brother didn’t suspect. Sherlock Holmes was after all, among other things, a rampaging lunatic prone to bouts of self-immolation in the name of escaping boredom. He could probably poison his coffee with cyanide or something and shed a few tears for everyone’s benefit.  The speech he’d give at his wake would go something like,  
  
 _“Sherlock Holmes…He was my best mate, a complete arsehole yes, but no one cared for him more than I did. A great man. It’s really such a shame he put cyanide in the sugar shaker instead of salt, otherwise we’d just be having a laugh over his high blood pressure instead of his bloody corpse…”_  
  
John Watson blinked once, twice, and pinched the bridge of his nose before dragging his thumbs over a pair of tired eyes. The queue moved finally, but woman in front of him was paying more attention to her mobile than her surroundings. He cleared his throat audibly and she took a step forward, not looking away from the screen. She reminded him of Mycroft’s PA, that woman…Anthea, or not-Anthea, whatever her name was.  
  
He had been up all the night with the baby, rocking and bouncing and changing and feeding and just, just as he had laid his head down and felt his mind slipping into blissful sleep, the phone on the nightstand (which he’d forgotten to turn off) had begun to vibrate. A text message from “The High-Functioning Sociopath”, as he had his contact info listed this week (it was soon after changed to “Annoying Cockhead”) which read simply:  
  
{THERE’S BEEN AN INJURY. COME AS QUICK AS YOU CAN. -SH}  
  
He had blearily jumped out of bed, dressed in jeans and a sweater, snatched his first aid kit he kept with him for instances where Sherlock’s recklessness bettered him, kissed Mary and the baby goodbye after leaving her a speedy note and grabbed a cab to 221b Baker Street. He’d taken the stairs up two at a time to Sherlock’s flat, threw open the door and stepped through the threshold only to see the man himself  lying diagonally on the floor in his familiar blue dressing gown and pyjamas, holding the skull from his mantlepiece over his head, staring at it intently. Surprisingly, but not surprisingly, it was the same position he had been in when John had left yesterday night. More surprisingly than that, he had a cigarette in his mouth. A trail of lazy smoke twisted and curled upwards into the skull’s eye sockets and its nose, giving it the appearance of some strange Hallow’s eve accoutrement.  
  
“What,” John exclaimed, “the hell are you doing? Why are you smoking, and more importantly, what the hell is so important you had to text me to come here at 6:30 in the morning? On a Wednesday?”  
  
As if he had snapped out a reverie, Sherlock lowered the skull and gracefully moved to stand, tucking it underneath his arm protectively. He grasped the cigarette with his free hand and took a long drag, exhaling a cloud of noxious fog to the ceiling.    
  
“Jumper inside out and wrinkled, two, three, no—four spots of throw-up, one of milk, two mismatched socks, five o’clock shadow, fingernail marks in your palms, hair pulled on one side,” He drawled by way of greeting. John glanced down to see, yes indeed, he had his jumper on inside out and was wearing two different coloured socks. “She has GERD.”  
  
“Where is the injury? Better yet, why couldn’t you have gone to A &E for it?” John inquired through gritted teeth ignoring his, of course accurate assessment. He’d suspected as much after three nights of projectile vomiting and a sunken fontanelle. He wasn’t a paediatrician, but had scheduled an appointment with one later in the day.  
  
Sherlock strode over to the fireplace mantel and replaced the skull into its usual position before throwing himself unceremoniously into his black leather chair, legs stretched out in front of him.  
  
“My brain hurts. I need—“  
  
“A case,” John interrupted disdainfully. “Yes. You do. And to not call me here for—“  
  
“MORPHINE!” He shouted, kicking out his long limbs for emphasis. “Thirty milligrams intravenous. A former British Army doctor, worked front lines in Afghanistan, treating severe wounds from IEDs, traumatic GSWs, improvised surgery on the battlefield, even though you’re a GP now you’ll always carry the maximum safe single dose, even though you know that you won’t have the chance to use it in London.” He threw his head backward over the chair and held out a pale arm studded with nicotine patches, hand balled into a fist.  
  
John open and closed his mouth in awe. “You…” He started, voice tense. “You have access to a homeless network, many of whom are on drugs of a much higher caliber than any puny dose of Morphine I could give you, and you call me.” He smiled wryly and shook his head, exhaling.  
  
“Unbelievable. You don’t even want it, do you? You wanted to see if I’d actually come! To help you find a case! I’ve a newborn at home, Sherlock!” He roared, not caring in the slightest of the time, or the fact he could hear what could only be Mrs. Hudson downstairs shuffling about.  
  
“A newborn infant with probable reflux who sleeps an average of sixteen hours a day?” Came his sardonic reply. “Boring. Messy.”  
  
Rather than rise to his immaturity (he knew jealous pouting when he heard it), John dropped the bag he had been holding to the floor in order to walk over to where Sherlock was sitting. The man did not move; he was too busy staring moodily at the ceiling tiles, John figured. So, he reached over a plucked the still-lit fag from Sherlock’s mouth while using the other hand to reach into his dressing gown pocket and remove the pack of cigarettes and matches there, turned, and walked downstairs and out the front entrance.  
  
He really should have known better than to trust Sherlock Holmes’ “urgent” text messages, anyway.  
  
The woman in front of him, Not Not-Anthea, stepped forward to the till to place an order of a triple grande non-fat latte, two pumps of vanilla, one of hazelnut, thanks, and could you put extra foam on it?  
  
 _Someone’s skipped breakfast. Still trying to hold onto that diet, though._  
  
Oh great, so now he was analysing other people. He needed a break from Sherlock, the man was invading his thought processes now too.  
  
“Doctor Watson?”  
  
John spun around to come face to face with a cappucino-skinned gent at least two inches taller and five years younger than himself. He was handsome he supposed, short, neatly-trimmed black hair slicked backward with short, neatly-trimmed facial hair that was more wisps than beard, if he were being honest. A slick charcoal-coloured suit, obviously tailored, matching tie and expensive-looking cuff links, watch and shoes sat on his frame almost uncomfortably, like he wasn’t used to wearing it. Which was daft, because he wore almost the same outfit every time John ran into him.  
  
He was Ricardo Del Rosario, current Ambassador to the UK from El Salvador. They had first met over three years ago, shortly after John had begun living in the flat at Baker Street. The El Salvadoran embassy was only a few streets away, and after many a sleepless night crime solving and blogging with the World’s Only Consulting Detective, he had begun single-handedly keeping open a cafe round the corner, notorious for its English breakfast and cheap Colombian roast coffee. Ricardo was a frequent patron as well, a nostalgic sort who came for the coffee but stayed for the company. He had married a woman from Hertsfordshire he’d met abroad, who was pregnant the last he heard. His father had been a sort of famous doctor in El Salvador, so even though the man had been casual friends with John for the last three years, invited to him and Mary’s wedding, he still called him “Doctor Watson” out of respect.  
  
“Ricardo.” John shook the man’s proffered hand warmly, trying his best to smile. “Nice to see you. Up early, eh?” The man returned his smile, which was more than a bit strained.  
  
“I was hoping to run into you, actually,” He admitted. “I was on my way over to your flat to meet with you.” His accent was undeniably British, somewhat Oxford, but with a tell-tale twist of his Latin heritage.  
  
He needed the coffee, really needed it, but there was an underlying tensity in the man’s words that set John’s curiosity off, so he left the queue and followed him to a secluded table away from the morning business folk and elderly men reading their newspapers.  
  
“How’d you know that I’d be over at Baker Street?” His flat with Mary was clear on the other side of London; Ricardo knew that because, although him and his wife Matilda had received an invitation to the wedding, they’d been out of town visiting her family in America and sent a gift through the post.  
  
He tossed John a wry smile. “ _La intuición, mi amigo_. That, and I ran into the brother of your friend Mr. Holmes at Downing Street yesterday.”  
  
John pinched his eyes shut again, exasperated. Mycroft. What was it with the Holmes brothers and the invasion of his privacy?  
  
“What’s going on, Ricardo?”  
  
“It’s Matilda. She…She’s not well.” He was nervously fingering the leather on his attache case, staring off into the distance uncomfortably.  
  
“Not well? What d’you mean?”  
  
“I mean…” The man cleared his throat and forced himself to meet John’s eyes. “Dr. Watson, we’ve known each other for a few years now, and I consider you to be a friend. You know I am a government official and as such, I lead a very public, if not very…glamorous life. What I mean to say is that I am…” He paused and shifted in his seat.  
  
“You’re afraid of something getting out into public view?” John guessed.  
  
Ricardo gave a sharp nod. “Yes. I know how this is going to sound, however, I have no other rational explanation for it, so I’m just going to go out and say it. I think my wife may be…Could possibly be... _la vampiro_.”  
  
 _He did not. Did…he just say what I think he just said? Ricardo, the most straight-shooter of a man I’ve ever argued football and politics with?_

John used his last few grams of patience his daughter and Sherlock hadn’t evaporated to attempt keep his face as deadpan as possible.  
  
“Y’know, I’m not really the greatest at Spanish, but I’m pretty sure you just told me that you think your wife may be a vampire.” Ricardo pursed his lips, looking down again, his cheeks reddening. “Vampire, like Bram Stoker, Twilight, that sort of thing.”  
  
 _So much for patience, then._  
  
“Back home, in the village I am from, ghost stories are traded. There live white and black _cadejo_ , spirits that look like dogs that can be good or evil. The black _cadejo_ is associated with the devil himself, and the other children of my home town, who used to watch American horror movies, used to say that vampires were _cadejo_ that took human form but still slept in graveyards at night and changed form. They drank the blood of family members to keep themselves looking human to pass incognito through the world of man.” He inhaled, and John thought that if he had been more of an acquaintance with this man, he would be hailing for a taxi in five seconds.  
  
“Matilda has been ill. She hasn’t been right since after our daughter, Paz was born two months ago.  She’s seen a obstetrician, who told us it was Postpartum and would go away in a few weeks. But she started drinking immediately after Paz, and I couldn’t make her stop.  A man started to appear outside of our home at night. I caught him once, staring up at her bedroom window from behind a lamp post, but he had run away before I even had a chance to phone the police. A few days ago,” He continued, setting this case on the floor next to them, “She began to sleep more. Said she was dizzy, throwing up. She was always tanned; You remember I met her while she was doing her work at _Bosque El Imposible_?  She started becoming very pale, very fast. Refused to come outside with me for our afternoon walks. I normally meet her at home for lunch and we stroll around the neighbourhood, reminiscing of the jungle. I insisted she see someone, but again she refused, she said it was a touch of flu coming on. She wouldn’t go near our daughter, she had for fear of getting her ill. But then, I came home from work late last night. Matilda was not in her room and I couldn’t find our nanny. I went upstairs to check on Paz and there was Matilda. She was standing over her cot, blood running down her lips, and Paz…Paz had blood on her face and was crying.”  
  
Ricardo wiped away the corner of his eye at the memory. “I don’t know what else to do, so I’m coming to you, _mi amigo_ , knowing that you are a man of medicine and that your friend Mr. Holmes is capable of solving even the most mystifying of situations.”  
  
John shifted in the chair, trying to wrap his tired mind around all that he had heard. First Hounds of Baskerville, now Vampires of…of…  
  
“Right,” He breathed. “Where d’you live again? Somewhere posh yes, out near Kensington?”  
  
“Yes, though we’ve just moved back in. We’d been staying with friends in Sussex over the summer while our flat was being remodeled.”  
  
 _Well thank God for that. Doubt I’d get Sherlock out for a case if it were to be ‘Vampires in Sussex’, no matter how bored he is._  
  
John held out his hand which Ricardo took with visible relief and shook it in affirmation. “I’ll have a talk with Sherlock and just run home to have a shower and change. Should I just meet you there then?”  
  
“Yes, that would mean so much to me. I won’t be getting much done at the office today anyway, I’m afraid.” Ricardo stood, smoothing the front of his suit self-consciously, pulling out a twenty pound note from his wallet and handing it over the table. “A small consolation for taking you out of the line,” He remarked with a smile, before taking up his briefcase and exiting the cafe.  
  
John sat a moment, staring across the room, tapping the thin paper on his thigh, contemplating the ever elongating queue. However, after a moment he too stood, pocketed the 20p, and took out his mobile from his pocket, texting a few lines to Mary before heading off out of the cafe himself, no longer feeling quite as drained.  
  
{SOMETHING’S COME UP.  RICARDO’S WIFE, MATILDA, REMEMBER HER FROM THE DINNER A FEW MONTHS BACK? SHE’S TAKEN ILL, WANTS ME TO HAVE A LOOK AT HER BEFORE HE SENDS HER OFF TO THE ASYLUM FOR BEING A VAMPIRE. NO, NOT KIDDING. I’LL BE HOME IN A BIT AND I’M SORRY, YOU’LL HAVE TO TAKE THE BABY OFF TO THE DOCTOR’S. LOVE YOU BOTH.}

 

* * *

 

  
  
7:47 am.  
  
It took him less than five minutes to round the corner and re-enter Sherlock’s flat, yet somehow in the hour since he had departed, the man had miraculously calmed himself down to his usual composed (if not but superficially) facade. He was dressed now in his favoured dark slacks and suit jacket with a deep red button-down shirt, one hand stuffed into his pocket while the other was moving furiously over his iPhone’s keyboard without even glancing at it. The sun had fully risen, and the juxtaposition of his silhouette against its’ warm glow made him appear paler than he usually seemed. If anyone was in question for being a vampire, thought John, it would be him. Standing there with his height accentuated by a tall mess of thick black curls, unconventional good looks (he had heard Molly call him “beautiful” once, a long time ago), borderline preternatural observations of human nature yet hiemal, unaffectionate distance from the rest of them; He was surprised Sherlock Holmes didn’t just burst into flames every morning. Always going on about ash, maybe he did just that;  Maybe he was some sort of vampiric phoenix or something.  
  
Vampiric phoenix. Right.  
  
There was a mess of papers and cigarette ash littered on the rug which the neat-freak in John studiously ignored, leaning up against the door frame with his arms folded across his chest instead.  
  
“Got us a case. Well, I’ve got a case, but since you were so kind to ask me along with you earlier, I thought I’d let you in on it.”  
  
Sherlock didn’t turn, or stop texting. “From your friend over at the El Salvadoran embassy?”  
  
John didn’t ask. It was only a five minute walk away, after all, and for all he knew Sherlock had followed him or had one of his homeless network following him instead.  
  
“He thinks his wife may be a vampire.”  
  
Sherlock halted his texting, imperceptibly turning his gaze towards the door and replacing the phone into his jacket pocket. “Interesting,” He said after a moment, much more subdued than John expected.  
  
“‘Interesting’?” He echoed. “That’s it?” Sherlock shrugged, picking up a heavy book from the table, unusually mute. John glanced down at his feet, noticing that the doctor’s bag he had brought earlier was still there, only opened.  
  
Through a clenched jaw, he asked: “Did. You. Take my Morphine?”  
  
His reply was the standard, succinct Sherlock affair. “Two syringes. You always surprise me, John. It’s amazing Morphine’s effect on the central nervous system. Blocking pain receptors within afferent nerves, reducing blood pressure, respiratory drive, producing sensations of euphoria and dependence. At one time I was dosing myself over 100 mg every few hours. You carry 90 milligrams in your emergency kit.” John was seriously considering slapping the man himself this time (or bring in Molly Hooper so they both could have a go of it; maybe Lestrade?), when Sherlock quickly stood up, slamming the tome closed with a loud slap, and crossing the room in one long strode to where his Belstaff coat was hanging. He shoved his arms through its wool sleeves.  
  
“I’ve an errand to run, but you know where the shower is. Help yourself; You probably shouldn’t be seen in public wearing your daughter’s stomach contents, plus you smell like the morning after Stag Night. I’ll meet you in Kensington in an hour.” He shot him a cheeky smile and dashed downstairs.  
  
Furiously, John called his name, but Sherlock had already gone, leaving a trail of dust and cigarette ash in his wake. John reached into his bag and took out the container that held his rescue drugs, cracking it open. Sure enough, two syringes of Morphine were gone, as was a third syringe, which held naloxone, an opioid antagonist.  
  
He must have injected himself, somehow figured out that he’d gotten them a case, and reversed the Morphine’s effects himself in the spans of an hour.  
  
Sherlock Holmes was nothing less than incredible. An incredible, damned idiot who apparently didn't learn his lesson.


	2. Martele

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, and thank you for the kind words and kudos, everyone! You won't be waiting long for the next part! 
> 
> -N.

28 October, 6:00 am  
  
A fully dressed Sherlock Holmes was sprawled unceremoniously in his favoured chair, idly adjusting the tension of the hairs belonging to his violin bow. One turn of the button and the hairs relaxed, collapsing into a loose pile still secured at either end of the stick; another turn brought them compressed back together, ready to skate across strings in a _Martellato_ , a brisk charging attack across the strings that produced an intense note not unlike, and in some cases exactly, a staccato.    
  
When his phone rang, he collapsed the strings and set the ensemble to the side, glancing at the number before accepting the call.  
  
“Yes?” He answered.  
  
“I’m downstairs with Jenny,” came the voice from the other end, uncharacteristically strained. “You need to see this.”  
  
He was up in a moment, taking the stairs two at a time and quietly so as not to disturb his landlady and not-housekeeper Mrs. Hudson, who was slumbering peacefully in her room adjacent to the stairs, opened the door to a small but well-tended garden behind 221B Baker Street. Blades of grass held beaded drops of moisture, and when he stepped outside, his breath came in a burst of fog and condensation.  
  
Off to the side, against a breeze block wall lay a woman who Sherlock Holmes knew as Jenny, a member of the Homeless Network known for her ingenuity and ability to use her fashion model appearance to her advantage while downplaying it completely when she wished to be incognito. Amazing what makeup and well-placed smudges could accomplish. Jenny could have easily taken her career in Milan to unspoken heights, but it was Milan that introduced her to heroin, a drug problem that introduced her to homelessness, and homelessness that introduced her to Sherlock. More than being what the conventional human being considered to be beautiful and more than being homeless however, Jenny was smart, even _intelligent._ Resourceful. Nowhere near the level of The Woman, but there wasn't anyone else alive who was.  
  
For now though, Jenny was the furthest from anything that could be considered attractive, even for him; Her head lolled to the side and her eyes were plastered shut with purple bags beneath them. Her coat and chin were stained with dried vomitus, and next to her stood the lanky form of Bill Wiggins cradling his left arm, a ribbon of blood nourishing the soil beneath his feet. It took him less than a second to exact the damage presented to him.  
  
 _Jagged slice off the arm of his jumper, flick knife probably, deep laceration at least 12 centimetres long and 4 deep; Attacker used a left handed sweep, yet the curvature suggests it was wide, as if not used to the sweeping motion, suggesting a right-handed individual, but a precise cut, trains with both hands, knew where to cut to maximize blood loss without inflicting nerve or arterial damage. Meant this attack as a message…_  
  
… _Message._ The word reverberated through him.  
  
He hurried to the man’s side, meaning to inspect the wound but Wiggins motioned him away, nodding to the unconscious woman next to him.  
  
“The message was about ‘er, and a simple one. ’Back off’. I’ve never seen these effects from any compound before. Jen’s back on ‘em, took me weeks to wean her off her usuals, thought we was doing good finally, then some arsehole starts skulking about the tunnels, practically giving away half-gram samplers to everyone. Jen was camped there, couldn’t stay away from it, and when she went looking for more she got ‘erself in a mess with one of the distributors, a bloke named Lopez.”  
  
Sherlock moved Jenny’s head to a straighter position as he continued. “They’re marketing it as ’Twilight Time’. But they’re practically force feeding it to the rest of ‘em, my guess is the formula is in its infancy, and they’re using ‘em to test its’ effects. I dunno what it’s made from, can only guess, an’ I—“  
  
His voice became thick, tears threatening the corners of his eyes. “I can’t lose her, Sherlock. I can’t go back to my lab, they’ve smashed an’ contaminated everything.”  
  
Sherlock looked from Wiggins to Jenny, her brown hair plastered to the side of her face in a diaphoretic mess. He lifted up an eyelid—sluggish—watched her chest fall—also sluggish—and felt her pulse. Thready.  
  
“Opiate toxicity, combined with dehydration. But you didn’t need me for that.” Sherlock arched an eyebrow.  
  
Wiggins shook his head. “Presents like an opiate. But look at that cut on her arm.” Sherlock didn’t need to, he had already noted the excessive bleeding from what was only a minor scrape four millimeters across on the posterior aspect of the forearm.  
  
“Ethanol induced thrombocytopenia. However…” He trailed off.  
  
“Exactly. Jen doesn’t drink. Never has. She doesn’t have any other disease or nothin’ that would act like this. It’s got to be the drug, its’ got to be.”  
  
Sherlock straightened himself, glanced at the watch on his wrist and exhaled quickly.  
  
“Stay here, I’ll be back in exactly—“ He thought a moment “—forty three minutes.”  
  
As he returned inside, he retracted the mobile from his trousers, typed out a line of text, sent it, then stopped on the landing before he ascended the staircase. He hastened back to the garden and without a word began rifling through Jenny’s coat pocket, retrieving the pack of cigarettes and lighter she had stashed there, lit one and took a long drag, savoring it a moment before returning the items and hurrying back indoors, looking at his wrist again.  
  
Upstairs, he removed his pants and shirt, tossing them carelessly on his bed and instead donned his dressing gown. He inspected his profile in the mirror in the bathroom, frowned, and pinching the cigarette between his lips, roughly tousled his hair to a degree that made him nod approvingly before reentering his living room, turning in circles desperately, searching for something. He spotted the skull on the mantlepiece and snatched it up before resting himself down on the floor, shifting several times until he was comfortable.  
  
Then he waited, until John Watson, exactly twenty-six minutes later, strode through the threshold, red-faced and huffing. He was donned in an olive-coloured corduroy jacket overtop the same jumper he had been wearing yesterday afternoon before leaving Baker Street, only with the addition of three added spots of regurgitated breastmilk, giving him a sour odor to match the expression on his face.  
  
He played his part well, fully knowing that a sleep-deprived John would be more than willing to buy into the idea of his relapse into drugs due to a streak of less than enthralling cases following them in the wake of Mary’s birth; A good stroke of fortune for John no doubt though the lack of excitement had turned Sherlock, for some unknown reason, to the powers of the internet to research information about newborns he hadn’t previously been privy to…which was, admittedly, most things about infants.  
  
When John left, it was nothing to ensure that he forgot his bag behind him, giving Sherlock unobstructed access to the pharmaceuticals within. He discarded his dressing gown, adorned himself once more (changing his shirt so he wouldn’t be wearing the same one from yesterday, as he had been before Wiggins showed up), and withdrew two syringes and vials from John’s neatly made kit.  
  
By the time he made it downstairs, forty-two minutes had past. Bill Wiggins, even with his girlfriend in a drugged stupor and himself draining sanguine fertilizer to the ground, drawled upon his reentry to the garden:  
  
“You’re a minute early. Missus’ a bit short with ya this mornin’, eh,” which Sherlock ignored, thrusting the drawn up syringe of Morphine under his nose which Wiggins injected into his antecubital fossa with the efficiency of a lifetime of practice. Sherlock repeated the action with Jenny.  
  
“Naloxone hydrochloride. Take her to the labs at Barts and request Molly to run a regular toxicological panel with the addition of a complete blood count with differential, and to save the dust underneath Jenny’s left ring finger for spectroscopy. She’s partial to complements on her shades of lipstick, but if she isn’t wearing any, she’s also switched to skimmed milk in her coffee, with the hopes of losing half a stone before her brother’s upcoming nuptials.”  
  
“That’s not gonna work with me, sir, but thanks anyway. I’ll be headin’ off, then.” Sherlock assisted him in collecting Jenny’s limp form from the dirt, and ushered them to the entrance to the garden.  
  
Sherlock helped them into a cab and handed the driver a twenty pound note with instructions to take the passengers to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital pathology building, and turned to go inside before the cab had departed the curb.  
  
Inside his flat, Sherlock retrieved the bow he had been toying with earlier, resting atop a stack of books nearest John’s chair, along with the violin that had been sitting in John’s spot. The weight was familiar in his hands, comforting in a way. He cradled the instrument under his chin and the notes of the second movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor began to fill the room. He studiously ignored the frustrated rustlings of Mrs. Hudson below him, and it was in that position he remained until he felt his mobile vibrate once more in his pocket.  
  
“JOHN WATSON, RICARDO DEL ROSARIO. MARIA’S COFFEE, 37 MELCOMBE.”  
  
“ADDRESS OF ROSARIO? -SH”, was his reply to the sender, just as John Watson had returned, no doubt for his bag.  
  
A _martele_ was what needed to be performed to ensure John was ignorant of his goings-on while Bill Wiggins and Jenny were taken care of, yet as Sherlock departed to the address his informant had messaged him, he thought it was more appropriate than he had previously surmised: Short, loud, brisk, and depending on the pressure exerted on the strings, it left the inner ear with a slight ring to it that might be construed as pain.  
  



End file.
